WO2012099510A1

WO2012099510A1 - Extraction of water in flue gas from combustion and industrial processes

Info

Publication number: WO2012099510A1
Application number: PCT/SE2011/050056
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ahmad Reza Shirazi
Original assignee: Ahmad Reza Shirazi
Priority date: 2011-01-19
Filing date: 2011-01-19
Publication date: 2012-07-26

Abstract

The invention presents a technology to provide reliable and renewable water resources, which intends to reduce the production cost of water. The water is extracted from sources which produce water vapor artificially, more specifically from sources where chemical bounded hydrogen or chemical bounded water in the fuels is converted to water in combustion and industrial processes and released by combustion and other industrial processes activities. The water vapor is liquefied by method using sudden pressure drop, for example a gas cooling process, a cryogenic process.

Description

EXTRACTION OF WATER IN FLUE GAS FROM COMBUSTION AND INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES

Technical field

The present invention relates to extraction of water in combustion and industrial processes flue gases.

Summary of the invention

The object of the invention is to provide a method and process of conduct for the combustion and industrial flue gases to produce water from combustion and industrial processes flue gases.

The studying of civilization history shows that the progresses and

developments of cities and industries have always been in the vicinity of or nearby major water resources. Therefore, water can undoubtedly be considered as the major factor for the agricultural and industrial development as well as human well being and welfare.

The necessity of water for human being increases every day due to the growth of world population as well as water find new applications in industry or other endeavors continuously.

Considering the influence of water in life summarized above, the necessity of finding new and renewable water resources seems inevitable.

The geographical location of most populated countries in the arid part of the world, the rapid increase of population in the world as well as the industrial acceleration that takes place at this moment, the shortages of water resources will be a major concern for generations to come. The industrial, agricultural etc development of countries in arid area of the world seems unattainable without new and reliable water resources and management.

At the other hand, the electricity production that it in self is an essential indicator of a country's development requires a large amount of water resources. Oil and gas industries, petrochemical industries, iron melting as well as cement manufacturing that are vital industries in any countries obligate reliable and substantial water resources.

According to the UN's reports, water shortages in the world have major negative impact on more than 1 ,400,000,000 human lives today and the situation deteriorates every day. Consequently, the shortage of water in the world causes major food shortage, hygienic and health and ... problems for a vast number of populations in the world.

As an example, the reports from the UN confirm that, although major water projects such as dam construction have never been as extensive as today in the world, the water supply per individual will decrease significantly, due to the major population growth prognoses as well as industrial planning.

As comparison, the water supplies per individual in developed countries are 7400 cubic meter of water per year, while the same number in developing countries at this moment is near 2000 cubic meter of water or less per individual and year. The UN reports show a sharp decline in water supplies, even considering all the ongoing and planned major water projects in the world.

On the other hand, due to the consequences of the climate change in the world, that is directly related to the vast amount of fossil and other fuels consumption in the world and producing enormous amount of artificial water vapor from fuels consumption containing hydrogen, unusual long lasting droughts in some part of the world and never seen floods and hurricanes in some other parts of the world, undermine the water supply situation in the world.

This invention presents a new technology to provide reliable and renewable water resources.

According to the reports for the fossil fuels consumptions of the power plants of the Energy Ministry in Iran, as an example, these power plants can alone produce 500 million cubic meter of clean, pure, soft and tamed water every year, if these power plants would be equipped with the Cryogenic system for processing the combustion flue gases described in this invention. This number can be compared to 187 million cubic meter of water, that is, the capacity of the reservoir of the water dam in Tehran that provides most of Tehran's 12 million populations with water.

This production of sweet, pure, tamed and soft water will of course increases with 2 to 3 folds (by reports of fossil fuel consumption prognoses) if new planning power plants, other planned and in used energy intense and major fossil and other fuel consuming industries such as iron melting, cement manufacturing,

petrochemical industries, oil and natural gas refinery etc. would be equipped with this invention.

As an example, according to reports from the Ministry of Energy in Iran, the net cost to produce and deliver pure water into the cities was equivalent to 1 US dollars per cubic meter in 2004. The net cost to produce and deliver pure water into the country side in Iran was equal to 1 .54 US dollar per cubic meter in 2004. The substituted sale price of water in Iran in the same year was 90 US Cents per cubic meter for the cities and 50 US Cents per cubic meter for the country side. The presented production cost of water refers mainly to water from dam and / or groundwater that can be considered as the most economical and inexpensive water deliverance.

This invention intends to reduce the production cost of the sweet, pure and soft water in the world by one third.

Generally, the cost for water production by this invention has been calculated from 20 to 40 US Cents per cubic meter of pure, sweet, soft and tamed water that does not required water treatments before any usage.

This can be compared to the process cost for water production in various desalination technologies that range from 1 to 1.4 Euro per cubic meter water depending on the local energy prices.

The initial investments for an industrial scale plant of this invention is one fifth compared to various desalination technologies with the same water production capacity.

This invention can certainly substitute expensive and extraordinarily energy consuming technologies such as desalination technologies of salt or brackish water by thermal, membrane or... technologies. Since for example, the thermal desalination plants consume a vast amounts of energy to boil and evaporate salt/brackish water and then use condensation techniques to convert produced water vapor into liquid form, this invention have natural advantages, and that is, the water vapor is already produced in the flue gases from combustion of fossil, bio fuel and hydrogenous fuels in power plants and also from other sources due to industrial processes such as iron melting plants, ceramic and cement manufacturing plants, petrochemical plants, oil and natural gas refinery etc.

The water obtained by the method of the invention is clean, pure, sweet, soft and tamed water. By 'clean water' is meant that the water is free from chemical and bacteriological impurities. By 'pure water' is meant that it is about 100 % water, thus no parts of inter alia minerals are present. By 'sweet water' is herein meant drinkable water with smaller amounts of minerals in comparison with salt or brackish sea water. By 'soft water' is meant water comprising smaller amounts of mineral salts. By 'tamed water' is meant that the water is treated in controlled manner, easily transported to intended reservoirs, to suitable places for application. The other advantage of this invention compared to desalination technologies is that, the water vapor to be process, is cooled by Cryogenic technology that requires much less energy than condensation technologies due to the nature of Cryogenic process that employ natural physical concept of gases.

There is another limitation to the desalination techniques and that is the access to salt or brackish water. There are countries that do not have sea shores and since the transportation of vast quantities of sea or brackish water to process is not feasible, thus make these technologies impractical. Furthermore, it has been shown that these desalination plants also have major negative environmental impacts.

However, to produce pure and clean water from industrial activities provide an excellent source of clean, soft, sweet and tamed water worldwide.

This invention provides a new and reliable water resource in the world.

There is another necessity to extract the water vapor from the flue gases due to the combustion and other industrial activities worldwide. Due to the enormous consumption of fossil, bio and hydrogenous fuels in the world, vast quantities of water vapor is produced artificially, that is the chemical bounded hydrogen in the fuels converted to water in combustion and industrial process, and releases into atmosphere as water vapor. Chemically bounded water molecules in the bio fuels as well as in the minerals are also released by combustion and other industrial processes activities.

These conducts have enormous impact on the climate. This artificial produced water vapor in the atmosphere causes long lasting droughts in some part of the world and causes unusual and unseasonable floods and in some cases hurricanes in some other parts of the world. This is due to the fact that the water molecules in the atmosphere function as macro and global agent of heat carrier / transporter by evaporation of water in lower latitudes and precipitation in higher latitudes (the natural global transfer pattern of water vapor in the atmosphere).

Since the number of these effective heat carriers / transporters (heat capacity of water vapor is 2.08 kJ/kg.K) increase intensively due to the combustion and other industrial activities, more heat will naturally transports from lower latitudes (droughts) to higher latitudes (floods or hurricanes).

For comparison, air (21 % 0₂ and 79% N₂) is a poor heat conductor and has the heat capacity of 1 .01 kJ/kg.K.

There are collective efforts to reduce C0₂ emissions from industrial activities in the world. It must be emphasized that, this artificial produced water due to human and industrial activities has much higher impact on climate than C0₂, due to the double effect of water vapor in the atmosphere.

The first impact is the fact that water vapor has much higher heat capacity

(2.08 kJ/kg.K) compared to C0₂ (0.82 kJ/kg.K), thus more effect on the atmosphere as green house gas.

Also high and unnatural concentrations of water vapor in the atmosphere create more clouds than usual and clouds generally entrap the heat in the

atmosphere and the increase of the climate temperature as a result with highly dangerous consequences for life.

There are worldwide efforts to replace fossil fuels with hydrogenous fuels. This will naturally increase the already vast emissions of water vapor into the atmosphere.

As it can be predicted, it will be consequences if there are not any restrictions of water vapor emissions.

This negative impact on the environment intensifies daily due to increase of consumption of hydrogenous, bio and fossil fuels in the world. The water vapor environmental impact has been overlooked worldwide compared to C0₂

environmental impact.

Another significant aspect of this invention is that, by extracting the water vapor from combustion and other industrial processes flue gases, the composition of the residual of the processed flue gases (mainly C0₂ and N₂ and other environmentally harmful gases such as CO, NO_x, SO_x and dioxins in waste combustion) is precise the proper composition for injection gas into hydrocarbon underground reservoirs, in order to increase the internal pressure of hydrocarbon reservoirs and also to reduce heavy oil viscosity and thereby enhance the extraction ratio of the hydrocarbons from these underground reservoirs and improving the productivity of hydrocarbon fields, instead of valuable natural gas that is used today.

This processed flue gases can also evidently be injected in-situ of power plants and industrial sites. The injection of flue gases into underground reservoirs has currently technical difficulties, solely due to the water vapor content of the

combustion and industrial flue gases, since the water vapors condensates during injection and prevents effective gas injection.

By excluding the water vapor from the industrial flue gases, the residual gases are manageable for injection and act as well as natural gas for increasing the internal pressure of hydrocarbon and heavy oil reservoirs.

These vast underground fields are natural milieus for entrapping and retaining hazardous gases. Since these reservoirs with their cap rocks, as prerequisite, have entrapped and preserved gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons, with upward movement tendency in the geological strata (due to lower densities of hydrocarbons), for a very long time and would naturally entrap the inferior quantities of the industrial environmentally hazardous flue gases (in comparison to the hydrocarbons quantities in the same reservoir), without leakage for a very long time as well.

Furthermore, since underground hydrocarbon reservoirs are highly porous and usually consist of geological formations such as limestone, dolomite, sandstone, salt domes, etc., the components of the flue gases (C0₂, CO, NO_xand SO_x) will most probably chemically react to the chemically reactive minerals in these geological formations and form carbonaceous, sulfurous or other minerals and would therefore be absorbed.

To exploit the industrial flue gases as injection gas instead of vast quantities of valuable natural gas that is used today, besides significantly decreasing the environmental impacts of heavy industries, is naturally another economical incitement to implement this invention.

The employment of this invention, that is to process and extract the water vapor from the combustion and industrial processes flue gases, creates opportunities to manage the industrial flue gases for injection the rest of the industrial fuel gases, essentially consisting of N₂, C0₂ and also to a lesser extend of CO, NO_x, SO_x and dioxins into the underground reservoirs, thus can be considered as an utmost effective Carbon Capture method as well as a new effective capture method of all environmentally damaging gases.

The employment of this invention and the prospect of flue gas injection approach presented here, will evidently obsolete any expensive and energy intense flue gas treatments such as SO_x absorption with limestone / dolomite, NO_x treatment with ammonia and very technical difficult treatment for highly toxin and chemically stable dioxins in flue gases from waste combustion etc., hence the technical, environmental and economical incitements to implement this invention and this approach of flue gas management is imperative.

As it appears, the implementation of this invention also significantly reduces the negative environmental impacts of highly polluting industries such as power plant, steel and cement manufacturing etc.

The benefits of this invention in heavy industries and the opportunities to the management of industrial flue gases for underground injection result to zero or almost zero emissions of environmentally hazardous gases such as C0₂, CO, NO_x, SO_x and dioxins (and also preventing water vapor emissions), thus to be able to significantly reduce the environmental taxes for heavy industries, is yet another economical incitement for heavy industries to implement this invention.

Additional important aspect of this invention is facilitating the site-selection of power plants and heavy industries. Since the mentioned heavy industries demands a vast quantity (and high quality) of water for cooling purposes and to a lesser extend for other usage (such as steam generations), these industries nowadays must be in the vicinity of water resources and the produced electricity (or the products) with major cost (expensive high voltage electricity grid) and high losses (almost 3 % losses of produced electricity during transportation) must be transported to the consumption region, in some cases a distance of 1000 km. The expensive costs for the transportation of energy carriers such as natural gas, coal, and oil etc for consumption of these industries are also significant.

Since this invention sufficiently provides the necessary quality and quantities of water for those industries in various power / production capacities and produce surplus high quality water, the site-selection of these heavy industries can be chosen based on other factors such as vicinity to consumption or vicinity to the energy carriers (refinery, mines) or both etc. This has great economical and environmental benefits.

Since more consumption of fuels and raw materials will results into higher water production, each power plants or heavy industries can therefore be self- sufficient in regard to water for cooling and other purposes by implementation of this invention.

It must be emphasized that the potential quantity of water produced by this invention, that is the processing of combustion and industrial flue gases, is considerably.

It is interested to emphasize that the extracted C0₂ and N₂ from the industrial flue gases beside injection into underground reservoirs, can be separated and naturally be used in useful industrial applications. It is evident that since these components are to be considered as by-product from the process of this invention and can be produced by noticeable quantities, the production costs of these products compared to conventional processes will be considerably lower.

There are a number of advantages for the present invention. Since power plants and heavy industries equipped with this invention beside heat/chill and electricity production (or industry products), instead of consuming precious water, can produce clean water with minimized environmental impact (due to the injection of the rest of flue gases), consequently to construct these heavy and essential industries will be more technical, economical and environmental feasible for major part of the world.

Although E U countries, in comparison, have plentiful water resources, in a report from E U Commission with the title: "Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC), Reference Document on the application of Best Available

Techniques to Industrial Cooling Systems", December 2001 , a more energy effective, less water resource demanding technologies and also less environmentally influences of industrial cooling systems are urgently inquired.

In this report, the environmental impact, the energy consumptions as well as the water quantity and quality that is necessary for various and current conventional industrial cooling systems is outlined.

The conventional industrial cooling systems besides consuming precious water have vast water vapor emissions into the atmosphere with the previously stated consequences for environment. By combination of the technologies and approaches presented in these inventions, the water will not be consumed or emitted during industrial activities.

Furthermore, since the internal energy consumptions of power plants utilities decreases by one third by implementations of these inventions, the surplus energy will increase the output of the heat/chill and the electricity of power plants

automatically and accordingly.

The extraction of water vapor produced from combustion and industrial processes by Cryogenic technology, can solve the utility and construction problems of heavy industries in an economically sense manner for a vast area in the world with water problem as well as the inquired E U Commission water resources,

environmental and energy specification conditions can be fulfilled and beyond.

In some part of the world, during summer and during peak of electricity consumption, due to the lack of water for cooling, the power plants are forced to shut down the combustion process. For the same reason, other heavy and vital industries productions are stopped or reduced. This has naturally major negative influences on the national economy of countries.

Consequently, to extract the water produced by combustion systems or industrial activities due to utilization of fossil, bio or hydrogenous fuels, and also utilization of raw materials for industries, will not only provide fresh and pure water where it is most needed, it will also have a great positive impact on global climate.

In conclusion, the implementation of these inventions and the prospect of the management of flue gases from power plants and major and minor industries have numerous technical, economical and environmental incitements. It provides the crucial tools to attain goal to essentially reduce the global emissions of C0₂ and other overlooked green house gases such as H₂0 and also hazardous gases (CO, NO_x, SO_x, dioxins etc.) by the year 2050.

It presents an important opportunity for sustainable industrial, agricultural and

... development and welfare in the world.

The Background of the Invention

Reliable energy and water resources are two foremost pillars that contribute the decisive factors for sustainable development and welfare in the world.

Sustainable development without preserving the environment is not viable.

In all combustion and industrial process systems that consumes fossil or bio fuels (solid, liquid, and gas), or hydrogenous fuels to produce energy, a considerable amount of water in the form of vapor is produced due to the combustion process. The industrial processes of major and minor industries as well as the conventional cooling systems contribute also vast quantities of water vapor in the atmosphere. These water vapors alongside other combustion and processes flue gases emits into the atmosphere.

The long period and enormous quantity usages of these fuels of the humans in the world and the emissions of the considerable quantities of water vapor into the atmosphere, has imbalanced the natural occurring quantities of water vapor in the atmosphere and seeing enormous and unseasonable floods and hurricanes such as Katrina in the USA or elsewhere and ever longer lasting droughts, are connected to human vast usages of these fuels worldwide. The situation will of course accelerate to the worse with increasing fossil, bio or hydrogenous fuel usages in the world if some contra measurements would not occur.

This vast amount of unnatural produced water is more endanger than other Green house gases such as C0₂.

Therefore, to extract the water produced by combustion systems or industrial activities due to utilization of fossil, bio or hydrogenous fuels, and also utilization of raw materials for industries, will not only provide fresh and pure water where it is most needed, it will also have a great positive impact on global climate.

It must be emphasized that the potential quantities of water produced by this invention, that is the processing of combustion and industrial flue gases, are considerably. The quantity of the water that can be produced by processing the flue gases in heavy industries is the sum of:

Combustion of chemical bounded hydrogen in the fuels

Fuel moisture, that can be significant specially in solid bio and solid fossil fuels combustion

Humidity of the combustion air. With high humidity of the air in arid parts of the world (where water is urgently needed) and high combustion air factor (ratio of 10-13 m³ combustion air to 1 m³ natural gas combustion, as an example), the natural occurring water vapor in the air (combustion air) will be processed as well and can also be attained

Chemical bounded water molecules in organic and inorganic substances of the fuels and in the raw materials (process industries such as cement or steel manufacturing industries)

Liquid water and water vapor in crude oil and sour natural gas that is attainable from oil and natural gas refinery processes

Simulations of fossil and bio fuels combustions and industrial processes such as steel and cement manufacturing, conducted by Fuel Valuation™ (PCT patent application no.: PCT/SE 98/01912 corresponding to European Patent Application no.: 98950596,1 ), show that considerably quantities of water can be produced by processing the combustion and industrial processes flue gases.

For example, the attainable quantity of water can reach 2-3 liters per m³ natural gas combustion or as much as 5-6 liters of water due to combustion of 1 kg bio fuel. This quantity of water increases even more for process industries such as cement and steel manufacturing processes using bio or fossil fuels.

The construction and process costs for this invention can and should be compared to the construction, maintenance and process cost for water dam constructions in order to tame and control small watercourses and to magazine water for household consumption, industrial activities, irrigation etc. with similar capacities in arid parts of the world. The transportation cost of water from water dam to industries or public for consumption can also be significant while this invention provide water resources at the site of the water consumption (industry or public consumption).

The water supply from dam and / or groundwater can be considered as the most economical and inexpensive water deliverance.

Although, dam constructions are regarded as the most environmental sensible approach to deliver water in arid parts of the world, it should be pointed out that in almost all cases large areas of agricultural fertile land (and in some cases archeological land areas) are flooded and submerged. Those populations that were supported by these areas had to move and be relocated somewhere else.

Furthermore, due to the intensive pressure on water resources in arid or semi arid parts of the world, in some cases overexploitations of groundwater reservoirs due to population growth, excessive agriculture or industry activities with high water consumption have depleted these reservoirs or have lowered the groundwater levels significantly with catastrophic consequences for the populations in these areas. Since the groundwater reservoirs in arid and semi arid parts of the world require a very long time to recover, these overexploitations have left these areas uninhabitable for a long time.

It seems that the conventional methods and approaches to provide water have reached their natural limits due to the rapid growth of the world population and industrialization. New methods and approaches to provide water are urgently inquired.

In addition, since the water provision from water dam construction or groundwater depends on precipitation, there will always be uncertainties (particularly nowadays because of current effects of global climate change), while the approach for water production presented in this invention is reliable as long as there is industry combustion or industrial production process continuing.

This invention intends also to reduce the waste of precious water caused by major and minor industries in arid regions of the world as well as improving the methods to provide pure process water for various industrial and civil activities. Detailed description of the Invention

This invention intends to extract the water vapor in the combustion and industrial processes flue gases and liquefy this water by applying Cryogenic process and thereby produce pure, clean, sweet and soft water in liquid form that can be used in every practice such as industries, agriculture, health and care etc. The mentioned procedure can be applied to every combustion or industrial process systems such as power plants, iron melting and steel manufacturing, ceramic and cement manufacturing, petrochemical industries, oil and natural gas refinery etc.

This invention in accordance to the attached drawing and the sequences featured below will extract and cool down the water vapor from the combustion and industrial processes flue gases and produce condense water that is both chemically and bacteriology clean and pure water. This soft water can be used directly in the industrial processes such as cooling or steam generation for power plans and industries without any water treatments.

The total quantities of the flue gases to be process, determine the dimensions of the plant based on this invention and the plant will be designed accordingly.

The sequence of the process is as follow:

References are made to Figure 1

1 . The combustion or industrial processes flue gases with proper pumps and piping leads to the designed plant by a valve (1 )

2. The combustion or industrial processes flue gases are processed in the

Molecular Sieve (2) in this step, in order to separate water vapor from other components found in the flue gases such as uncombusted hydrocarbons, nitrogen, carbon dioxide etc. The purpose of this separation of pure water vapor from other component in the flue gases is for the reason that the quantity of the gas to be further processed will decrease by a factor of one to tenth and therefore, the hardware necessary for the Cryogenic process will decrease proportionally. It will also separate corrosive components such as SO_x or NO_x the might be found in the flue gases, with noticeable benefits for the manufacturing and process cost of such a plant.

The process can also be designed differently, i.e. the composition of the molecular sieve can be selected to separate solely the uncombusted hydrocarbon components in the flue gases in order to prevent and eliminate explosion problem by excluding the hydrocarbon components from the Cryogenic process.

It is interested to emphasize that the extracted C0₂ and N₂ beside injection into underground reservoirs, can naturally be used in useful industrial applications. It is evident that since these components are to be considered as by-product from this plant and can be produced by noticeable quantities, the production costs of these products compared to conventional processes will be considerably lower.

3. A compressor (3) with the proper capacity has been designed in this step of the process, in order to increase and equalize the pressure of the process gas into the designed operational pressure in the first chamber.

4. These areas indicate the sampling points of the process gas for quality and quantitative analyses by Gas Chromatography (GC) or Gas Chromatography / Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS) (4) before and after molecular sieve in order to monitor and determine the efficiency of the molecular sieve step. 5. This step is an automatic valve (5). This valve will be open until the designed operational pressure is reached in the first chamber (below). The valve will automatically shut when the preset pressure is reached in the first chamber.

6. This is the first process chamber (6). The function of this first chamber is to equalize the pressure of the process gas before entering the main process chamber.

The dimension of this first chamber will be depended on the process data such as the quantity of the flue gases to be process at each batch as well as the temperature and the pressure of the process gas.

This chamber will be isolated at the outside and the pressure and temperature of the process gas will determine the coating inside.

In order to help and start the cooling process of the gas, spirals for recycling of cool water have been designed inside the chamber.

7. In this step, a programmed pressure gauge (7) has been designed in order to signal out the pressure of the first chamber and monitor the valve (5) (above) and valve (8) (below) operations and performances.

8. Another automated valve (8) has been designed after the first process chamber that will be shut until the pressure in the first chamber reach preset level. It will be open and the valve in the item 5 (above) will be shut and the process gas will enter the main process chamber (below). It will automatically shut down when the first chamber has evacuated its process gas contents. As it was pointed out, the function of these valves will be monitored.

9. This part of the plant is the main process chamber (9). The dimension and the volume of this chamber are proportional to and designed for, the total volume of the process gas and are directly related to the dimension of the first chamber (6).

The operation pressure inside the main chamber calculates in accordance to the process data such as the quantity of the flue gas to be process at each batch and the desired temperature to be reached.

The operational pressure inside the main chamber is however less than the operational pressure inside the first chamber.

When releasing the contents of the first chamber into the main chamber, the pressure will suddenly drop and the gas will expand and thereby a controlled decrease of the gas temperature will occur. This instant temperature reduction will cause the water vapor to reach the dew point and liquefy.

The new formed water drops will descent by its weight to the bottom of the main chamber and by another automated valve 16 (below) leave the main chamber. In order to increase the efficiency of the process, the contact surface area inside the main chamber have been increased by constructing "steps" at various heights inside the main chamber.

The main chamber is isolated at the outside and coated inside depending on the characteristic of the process gas.

Due to the nature of the process, that is sudden and intense pressure fluctuations, the first and the main chambers must be gas tight.

The main chamber has a number of windows in various heights in order to supervise the process manually.

10. There is another programmed pressure gauge (10) that monitors the pressure inside the main chamber. Since the predominant feature of the process in this plant is pressure fluctuations, the monitoring of the pressures is essential.

1 1 . There are thermocouples (1 1 ) that monitor the temperatures inside the first and the main chamber.

12. Here is another sampling point to analyze the departing process gas by

GC or GC/Mass analyzer (12) in order to determine the water content of the outgoing gas and thereby determining the efficiency of the process.

13. In this part of the plant, there is another automated valve (13) which connecting the vacuum pump (14) (below) and the main chamber. This valve will be shut when the preset operational pressure is reached in the main chamber. It is essential that this valve would be shut when the main process that is the drop of the pressure (temperature) is continuing.

14. Here is a vacuum pump (14) that achieves and maintains the

predetermined operational pressure in the main chamber via the valve (13) in item 13.

15. In this part of the plant, it has been designed to add chemicals such as Silver Chloride into the main chamber in order to improve and increase the efficiency and the rate of the process if necessary.

These additives are proved to enhance the condensation nuclei of water drops and can be used if the efficiency control indicates a decrease of rate and efficiency of the process.

16. There is an automated valve (16) in the bottom of the main chamber. The objective of this valve is to dispense the produced water out of the main chamber. During the disposal of the produced water, the valve must be gas tight in order to prevent backward gas intrusions into the main chamber. 17. This part is a simple compartment (17) to retain produced water for later use.

18. This part is the main control unit (18) of the system (PC or PLC) that monitors and controls the valves, the pressure gauges, the thermocouples, the compressor, the pump, etc. in order to automate and improve the process.

Figure 1:

Figure 1 shows the process data for processing one cubic meter of typical combustion flue gases from a power plant.

Claims

1. Method and process of conduct for all the combustion and industrial flue gases characterized in th a t the industrial flue gases contain substantial mass quantity of water vapors and by liquefying the water vapor thereby the water vapor in the flue gases is extracted and provide substantial quantities and very high quality of clean, pure, sweet, soft and tamed water and can therefore be regarded as a new and reliable water resource in the world.

2. Method and process for extracting the water vapor from combustion and industrial processes flue gases, characterized in that the flue gases are processed and the water vapors therein are extracted and liquefy by Cryogenic process, that is by sudden preset pressure fluctuations to reach preset and desired temperature for the dew point of water vapor and thereby produce clean, pure, sweet, soft and tamed water.

3. Method and process for extracting the water vapor from combustion and industrial processes flue gases, characterized i n t h at to extract water vapor from combustion and industrial processes flue gases by employment of Cryogenic process and apparatus, described in this invention, that is the flue gases by sudden pressure drop decreases in temperature to designed and preset level, that cause the water vapor to reach the dew point and liquefy, provides substantial quantity and very high quality of clean, pure, sweet and soft water.

4. Method and process for extracting the water vapor from combustion and industrial processes flue gases, characterized in that by employment of any gas cooling processes, that cause the water vapor to reach the dew point and liquefy, provides substantial quantity and very high quality of clean, pure, sweet and soft water and can therefore be regarded as a new and reliable water resource in the world.

5. Method and process according to any of claim 1,2,3 and 4,

characterized in t h a t the management and to process the combustion and industrial processes flue gases provides approximately 2-3 liter of sweet, pure, clean and soft water from combustion of 1 m³ natural gas.

6. Method and process according to any of claims 1,2,3 and 4,

characterized in that the management and to process the combustion and industrial processes flue gases provides at least about 5 liter per 1 kg combusted bio fuel.

7. Method and process according to any of claims 1,2,3 and 4,

characterized in that the quality of the produced water is chemical and bacteriological pure water.

8. Method and process according to in any of claims 1,2,3 and 4, characterized in that the said method and/or approach of management of flue gases can be employed to any power plants with various combustion systems and any industrial processes such as Steel manufacturing, Cement and Ceramic manufacturing, Petrochemical process industries, Oil and Natural gas refinery etc.

9. Method and process according to any of claims 1,2,3 and 4,

characterized in that the said method and/or approach provides sufficient water quality and quantity for industries with various production capacities to be self- sufficient in regard to water resources for cooling and other purposes such as steam generation and would not require and consume vast quantities of precious water resources and moreover produce high quality water.

10. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 9,

characterized in that the said method and /or approach facilitates the site-selection for industries, where these heavy polluting industries until now have to be located in the vicinity of major water resources for cooling and other usage of water in order to operate with costly transportation of energy carriers to the industry site and costly opposite transport of products or electricity to consumption region.

11. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 10,

characterized in that by employment of said method and /or approach and a more suitable site-selection for power plants and heavy industries, substantial transportation costs for energy carriers to these industries can be avoided as well as the output of these industries such as produced electricity can be transported in shorter distances for consumption and therefore less electricity losses due to the transportation of electricity with lesser investments for high voltage electricity grids can be achieved and furthermore these heavy polluting industries can be distanced from populated or environmental sensitive locations.

12. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4,

characterized in that the produced water has high quality and in addition has low temperature, preferably as low as 7 °C and can therefore be used directly in cooling systems without any water treatments or cooling.

13. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4,

characterized in that by employment of said method and /or approach provides high quality and quantity of water with less initial construction investment as well as the process costs are much lower due to one third of energy consumption of said method and approach compared to other technologies such as desalination of salt or brackish water methods thus supply less expensive water per volume unite.

14. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4,

characterized in that by employment of said method and /or approach provides high quality and quantity of water with less initial construction investment as well as the maintenance and process costs are much lower of said method and approach compared to other water producing technologies such as construction of water dam to tame water and also prevent depleting the ground water, thus provide less expensive water per volume unite.

15. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4,

characterized in that by employment of said method and /or approach, that is, to process the industrial flue gases and by have extracted and excluded the water vapors, that is a major green house gas, from the industrial flue gases, the great global environmental impact by vast water vapor emissions into the

atmosphere is prevented.

16. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4,

character!^' zed in that by employment of said method and /or approach to process and extract the water vapor from the combustion and industrial processes flue gases beside enormous environmental advantages provides also vast quantities of gas, containing mainly N₂ and C0₂ and to a lesser extend consisting of environmentally damaging gases such as CO, NO_x, SO_x and very toxic dioxins etc, for injection to hydrocarbon underground reservoirs in order to increase the internal pressure of underground hydrocarbon reservoirs and lower densities of heavy oil reserves and thereby increase and improve the extraction ratio of hydrocarbon fields.

17. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4, and 16, characterized in that by employment of said method and /or approach to process and extract the water vapor from the combustion and industrial processes flue gases beside enormous environmental advantages, provides manageable gas masses for underground reservoir injection in order to increase the internal pressure of hydrocarbon fields and lower densities of heavy oil reserves and thereby improving the extraction ratio of hydrocarbon fields instead of valuable natural gas that is currently utilized.

18. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4, and 16, characterized in that by employment of said method and /or approach to process and extract the water vapor from the combustion and industrial processes flue gases by have extracted and excluded the water vapors creates opportunities to inject into the underground reservoirs the rest of the industrial flue gases essentially consisting of N₂, C0₂ and also to a lesser extend consisting of environmentally damaging gases such as CO, NO_x, SO_x and very toxic dioxins etc, thus significantly reduces the total environmental impacts of heavy and polluting industries and the industrial flue gases.

19. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4 and 16,

characterized in that by employment of said method and /or approach to process and extract the water vapor from the combustion and industrial processes flue gases by have extracted and excluded the water vapors creates opportunities to inject into the underground reservoirs the rest of the industrial flue gases essentially consisting of N₂, C0₂ and also to a lesser extend environmentally damaging gases such as CO, NO_x, SO_x and very toxic dioxins etc, thus can be considered to be a new and an utmost effective Carbon Capture method as well as a new capture method for all environmentally damaging gases that produces during combustion and industrial processes.

20. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4, 16 and 19, characterized in that by employment of said method and /or approach to process and extract the water vapor from the combustion and industrial processes flue gases by have extracted and excluded the water vapors creates opportunities to directly inject into the underground reservoirs the rest of the industrial flue gases essentially consisting of N₂, C0₂ and also to a lesser extend consists of

environmentally damaging gases such as of CO, NO_x, SO_x, and very toxic dioxins etc, thus obsolete all the expensive, environmentally negative influences and energy intense flue gas treatments such as SO_x absorption with limestone / dolomite, NO_x treatment with ammonia or very technical difficult treatment for highly toxin and chemically stable dioxins in the flue gases from waste combustion etc.

21. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4 and 16, characterized in that by employment of said method and /or approach to process and extract the water vapor from the combustion and industrial processes flue gases beside enormous environmental advantages provides also vast quantities of inexpensive industrial gases such as N₂ and C0₂.

22. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4,

characterized in that by employment of said method and /or approach to process and extract the water vapor from the combustion and industrial processes flue gases provides a new product and outcome, that is high quality water beside conventional productions such as heat/chill and electricity that is generated by power plants and also the same new product and outcome from other industrial activities beside conventional industrial products.

23. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to4, character i z e d in that by employment of said method and /or approach to process and extract the water vapor from the combustion and industrial processes flue gases a new product and outcome that is high quality water beside heat/chill and electricity can be provided by power plants and also from other industrial activities thus creates opportunity and prospect to construct power plants and heavy industries in arid regions of the world and also initiate much more economical, environmental and technical feasibility for these vital heavy industries constructions especially in the developing countries.

24. Method and process according to any of claims 1 to 4, character iz e d in that by employment of said method and /or approach to process and extract the water vapor from the combustion and industrial processes flue gases resolves the utility problems for heavy industries in an economically sense manner for a large part of the world, especially in the arid regions of the world and provides valuable, and sustainable industrial, agricultural, ... development opportunities for the developed and developing countries as well as the environmental obligations are fulfilled.